Skies Don’t Have Brushstrokes In Them

I know it is a bias, but sometimes I can't help thinking
that painting skies belongs to a particular realm of watercolor painting. The
medium just seems best suited to give the jaw-dropping visual effects that
often appear in the sky.

Take a crystal clear blue sky on a sunny day. The delicacy
and uniformity of that color--with very little variation in tone or value--seems
much easier to convey in a bold wash of watercolor than in the brushstrokes of
an oil painting. While I love brushstrokes, and think there is a time and place
for them, sometimes they can be visually disruptive if handled in too busy a
manner, or if the effect you want is a little more seamless.

Or what about the extreme colors of the aurora borealis?
These atmospheric effects are so vaporous and fine that blotting a series of
colors on watercolor paper seems the way to go to achieve that transparent
gleam.

If there are storm clouds rolling in with several gradations
of color in the sky, then this could be an excellent opportunity to really put
the blending properties of watercolor painting through
its paces. Painting wet into wet, you can usually build subtle layers of color
while getting a lot of organic forms in the area you are painting--both of which
would be ideal for a cloudy, stormy sky.

By no means am I saying that watercolor artists
are superior or that watercolor art is heads above the rest, but watercolor
painting may be the way to go if you are drawn to many of the most powerful
aspects of art--color, texture, line, and organic forms. The Artist's Color Guide to Watercolor can really open up
your eyes to all of the inherent possibilities in this medium, or it can help
you sharpen your watercolor painting techniques if you are a practicing
watercolorist. Either way, enjoy!

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Comments

I do not agree with this article at all. Watercolour is good for wet in wet but I use acrylics for skies. To paint tgem minus brushstrokes I use flow enhancer. I blend stormy skies by dry brushing and any soft ethreal colours are done by layers of fine glazes , spraying if needed to keep wet and blend the edges generally with my fingers. I paint a lot of sea and sky pictures and I love fine detail and realism and have never had a problem with this wonderful, versatile medium www.gaynordoreartist.com